


Discoveries

by laireshi



Category: Original Work
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Magic, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-10 09:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17423300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: A relationship with a warlock was always going to be complicated.





	Discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [runningondreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/gifts).



> I am so glad you requested orig fic xD I had so much fun with it!
> 
> Thanks for beta to [Comicsohwhyohwhy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/comicsohwhyohwhy)!

Elsbeth twitched in her sleep and Astra froze, midway through getting up, hoping she wouldn’t wake up. No such luck: Elsbeth made a soft sound of protest and then opened her eyes, frowning. Astra stifled a laugh. For a warlock, her girlfriend really didn’t like to be awake at night.

“Sorry, I got a call.” She raised her hand, showing off the violet crystal attached to her bracelet pulsing with light. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Everything okay?” Elsbeth said. “I can—”

“It’s fine,” Astra interrupted. As if her boss would look kindly on her bringing a warlock _to help_. She leant down to press a kiss against Elsbeth’s mouth. “Go back to sleep.”

Elsbeth did so without further protest, which really wasn’t surprising at all.

Astra stepped out of their bedroom softly and padded downstairs to put on her armour with all its clinking parts there. Practice made it only take a moment, and then she double-checked she could reach her sword easily, and she went out.

***

She returned home when the sun was already rising, distantly aware she must’ve been reeking of magic. Most passer-bys didn’t notice, perfectly ignorant of the power that could kill them, and those who did were startled only for as long as it took them to notice her City Guard insignia. 

The last all-out magic war was twenty years ago, but the memories remained. 

Elsbeth was yawning at the kitchen table when Astra walked in, nursing a cup of coffee. “Morning,” she said. “How was it?”

Astra raised an eyebrow. Elsbeth took another sip of her coffee and almost choked on it, clearly only then registering the aura.

“Hell,” she swore, “you said you wouldn’t need help.” She was up and waving her hands around Astra immediately, and out of long familiarity only, Astra recognised dispel and healing spells.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Something was found under the Guard training building.”

“Under,” Elsbeth repeated, narrowing her eyes. “Those were built _on top_ of an old _warlock school_.”

Of course she’d remember that. She had started the _new_ school, after all. Astra sighed.

“Yeah,” she says. “So there’s _something_ there. It attracted two magic users who apparently decided to fight it out between themselves.”

“You should’ve called me,” Elsbeth said. Her black hair was in disarray and she was still wearing pyjamas only, one strap of her top pushed down her arm in a way that was a bit distracting, but suddenly Astra could feel her aura escaping her control. The urge to step back was overwhelming, because Elsbeth might look harmless with her round, smiling face and love for pastel-coloured clothes, but there was a reason for why she’d been the one to put the magic community back in order in the years when most of magic users had learnt to answer to power only.

She stood her ground all the same. Elsbeth had never and would never harm _her_.

She got her power back under control almost immediately and looked embarrassed about it, but she kept looking at Astra. “You _know_ you should’ve.”

“And you know most of the Guard doesn’t like warlocks.” Astra sighed. “We have it under control. Promise.”

Elsbeth didn’t get it. She was the headmistress of the Wizards, Witches, and Warlocks Academy. Her people listened to her. Astra was just a captain in the Guard and she had to follow orders. More than that, she _trusted_ her superiors. Their dislike for warlocks aside, they wanted to keep the peace. She couldn’t just ignore all of that because she loved a warlock woman.

“Okay.” Elsbeth nodded. “If you say so. But _tell_ me if it escalates.”

Astra didn’t reply, because she couldn’t promise that. “We have magic users on staff too, remember?”

Elsbeth huffed. “You have healers. You don’t even have witches to work in the more long-term defences or charms.”

Astra raised her hands. “That’s not something you have to argue about with me.”

Elsbeth deflated. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—it could have been dangerous. I’m worried about you.”

Astra pulled her in for a hug. “I’m okay,” she whispered into her ear.

Elsbeth relaxed after a long moment. 

***

Astra got to have the day off thanks to the night-time intervention, so after she caught up on some sleep, she made sure to buy the ingredients for Elsbeth’s favourite meal, a salmon with white-wine sauce that she couldn’t do herself. Astra had asked, in the beginning, how Elsbeth could be so bad at cooking when she had to make elixirs, and Elsbeth had told her witches and wizards might’ve engaged in alchemy, but she preferred pure spells, thank you very much.

The emergency crystal at Astra’s wrist remained dark for the whole day, for which she was grateful. It seemed that it was an isolated incident and not really a dangerous artefact summoning power-hungry mages to itself, as she had feared for a moment when Elsbeth seemed so worried in the morning. 

Elsbeth returned late, a stack of books flying next to her. “Final grade’s summer experiment’s accounts,” she explained, directing them to fly to her office upstairs. 

“What’s the point of being the tall and strong one in a relationship when your girlfriend has a spell for everything?” Astra asked her, and Elsbeth chuckled.

“What, do you want to carry those back to the school to show off when I’m done?”

“Pass,” Astra said. “But you could ask me to open a jar now and then.”

“Noted,” Elsbeth told her. Then she raised her head, scrunching her nose adorably. “You cooked!”

She stood on her toes to kiss Astra and Astra laughed and picked her up. “It’s simmering. We have time.”

“Mm, _time_ ,” Elsbeth said, kissing down Astra’s neck.

“I _will_ drop you,” Astra warned.

“No you won’t,” Elsbeth answered, biting on her pulse point.

***

The crystal at Astra’s wrist was pulsating gently. She woke up in seconds flat and disentangled herself from Elsbeth’s arms carefully. She didn’t wake this time, small mercies, and Astra left quietly. She didn’t bother leaving a note. Elsbeth would understand what happened if she woke up alone.

The training grounds were just fifteen minutes away, and Astra arrived to find Commander Ideis already there, two younger recruits that Astra didn’t know behind her. They probably lived at the barracks near the grounds. 

“Same as yesterday,” Commander Ideis told her grimly. “I called you because I _don’t_ want the news of it getting out.”

That explained the small team. 

They went inside the building and approached the trapdoor leading to the cellars. They weren’t very extensive, but they were connected to the old underground levels of the old warlocks academy, and there was an anti-magic sigil on them shining bright red in the dark.

Not worrying in the slightest.

Astra put her hand on her sword as they went down. They used a hand-held gem of trapped light in the cellars, but just like the last night, they didn’t need it once they went a level down into the stone corridors of the old school. Those were dimly lit seemingly by themselves, but the light got brighter as they followed down.

Commander Ideis glanced at her, and Astra nodded. She could feel a magic fight taking place somewhere nearby. 

Yesterday, there had been a spell ringing through the whole building, and then nothing. The lights in the corridors had slowly disappeared. They had gone forward, looking for more clues, but they hadn’t found anything, not bodies, not belongings, nothing out of the ordinary. Just old corridors and empty rooms so small they could’ve been cells.

Astra didn’t like being there or thinking what the underground parts might’ve been used for.

Elsbeth didn’t like talking about her own training, and that took place after the school had fallen, by all accounts a better fate. Still: there was a reason she had started a school of her own to make things better.

They followed down, and then Astra felt a new wave of magic.

 _Impossible_.

She ran forward.

“Stand back!” Ideis barked after her, but Astra couldn’t. She cleared a turn and found herself staring at Elsbeth, her hands raised. There was someone else there, but Astra couldn’t see them clearly; Elsbeth’s aura heavy like an autumn fog.

She startled when she saw Astra, and the other person used it. A tendril of black magic went through Elsbeth’s defences, hitting her in the side; Elsbeth winced and brought her hand down, fast.

“Keep out, Astra,” she said, a wall of fire raising just a step in front of Astra. 

She was supposed to be asleep in her bed, not fighting over a thing she supposedly didn’t know anything about.

Had it also been her last night, before everything had gone quiet? But no, she’d seemed honestly surprised.

And she’d promised to keep out.

“Captain Astra, what is this?”

Astra couldn’t meet her Commander’s eyes. “I don’t know.”

“It’s your partner, Captain. A warlock.”

Astra didn’t know what to say. She had never before had a reason not to trust Elsbeth; not when they met, not when they first started dating, certainly not when they moved in together. They wouldn’t have stayed together for _years_ if Astra couldn’t trust her.

She hadn’t expected _this_. She couldn’t understand magic, but she’d made her peace with it. She’d never thought that could stop her from understanding _Elsbeth_. Did she really know her?

She couldn’t see much from behind the wall of fire. The air was heavy with magic, Elsbeth’s power making it hard to even breathe there, and this other energy of her enemy, almost as strong (Astra _hoped_ it was merely almost).

There were flashes of strong light, but no clashes of metal as there would be in a swordfight. No movement, really; they both seemed to be standing in place and throwing spells at each other, or maybe that too was the illusion of fire.

Astra looked back briefly, saw the recruits were standing several metres back, clearly unaccustomed to magic. She was only as used to it because she lived with Elsbeth. 

_Why was she here?_

The ground shook underneath them.

Commander Ideis hesitated, then she pointed upwards. “Everyone out!”

Astra didn’t go after her. She couldn’t leave Elsbeth there, even if it was her own power carelessly thrown around underground endangering them all.

And then the other warlock’s aura spiked up and disappeared almost in one moment, and Elsbeth’s wall of fire went down.

She turned towards Astra, her light blue gown slashed on the side and stained with blood, her eyes still glowing with power so that it was difficult to look at her. The walls kept shaking. Elsbeth was pressing a book to her body, and she was regarding Astra with a blank expression.

“One would think they’d have built those to withstand a spell or two,” she said as if she was talking about weather. _Oh, what an unexpectedly rainy day_. “Hmm. Your Commander and two other people, am I right?”

“They’re on the way out,” Astra said curtly. She pushed the questions and accusations away. Those could wait. They had to clear out first. 

“Not fast enough,” Elsbeth said, still completely serene, and then she made a complicated gesture with her hand.

Astra was familiar with teleportation spells, but nothing like that. Before, Elsbeth made sure they were touching each other, warning her teleportation was a risky thing the few times they tried it. Now, the world disappeared from under Astra’s feet, and for the longest moment there was _nothing_ : just a silent blackness, neither warm nor cold.

Then they stood outside the training grounds: Elsbeth, Commander Ideis, the recruits.

“Is there anyone else in the building directly over the cellar?” Elsbeth asked, and there was something in her voice making it impossible to discuss, to say anything other than a direct answer to her question, and so Astra stayed silent, as she didn’t know.

“One guard on watch,” Commander Ideis said in a voice unlike her own.

Elsbeth nodded. Another gesture, and a man appeared next to them. He yelped, looking around in shock.

Elsbeth exhaled, bringing in her aura again, and as she did so, the corridors underground finally collapsed, the building falling in with a horrifying noise.

“You’re hurt,” Astra said, because if they were safe— _do not think about the destroyed building_ , she told herself—this was the next most important thing.

Elsbeth shook her head. “Not anymore.”

She stood still, she stopped exuding raw power, and she still seemed like the most dangerous person Astra had ever seen. She’d lived through the war, but she was on the outskirts and a kid, shielded from the worst horrors. It was only now that she understood why magic was so feared.

But it was still Elsbeth, who kissed her awake in the morning and could burn fried eggs when she tried to make breakfast.

Commander Ideis didn’t have Astra’s problems. She stared Elsbeth down. “You’re under arrest,” she snapped.

Elsbeth raised an eyebrow. “For saving your life?”

“There wouldn’t have been a need for that if you didn’t destroy the Guard’s training grounds first,” Commander Ideis snapped.

Elsbeth sighed. “You have no means of holding me,” she said, and looked at Astra briefly, “and if you try and use _her_ , you will pay.” It sounded matter-of-factly, like she wasn’t threatening Astra’s superior and destroying both their lives in the process. “This building was raised on the ruins of a hundreds-years-old academy of very much deserved ill fame. Not an ideal place to train new guards, even if I realise you wanted to wipe out the memory.”

“There are laws,” Commander Ideis said through clenched teeth. “For what magic users can and can’t do. These laws exist _for a reason_.”

“Agreed,” Elsbeth said easily. “But it is late, and Astra can tell you I don’t like the night all that much. So how about I come by and explain in the afternoon?” She smiled, the little dimples in her cheeks making her seem sincere and naive. 

And she must have been, to believe Commander Ideis would agree to this _nonsense_.

God, Astra’s head was hurting.

“Headmistress,” Commander Ideis said. “This city has a lot for which to be grateful to you, but this is enough.” Astra could see her calculating, wondering what to say to convince Elsbeth, but she could save her the trouble: there was nothing that could change Elsbeth’s mind once she decided on something.

“Elsbeth,” she said quietly. “This is insane. I left you at home. _Why_ are you here?”

Elsbeth glanced down at the book she was still holding, back at Astra. “I didn’t plan it,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”

 _Did you plan on proving exactly why some think magic should be forbidden_ , Astra thought, looking over the newly-formed crater next to them, but she didn’t voice it. She didn’t know how to talk to Elsbeth, all of a sudden.

“Look, Commander,” Elsbeth said. “You might not believe in anything I say right now, but you know I value my school more than most things. I want to be able to continue my work there, so I will be back.” She reaches to hold Astra’s hand, and this time the teleportation spell feels familiar. Safe.

When the world materialises around them again, they’re standing near a stream in a dark forest. Elsbeth summons a ball of light, and Astra recognises the place immediately: it’s where they’d met for the first time.

It made sense, she supposed. The guard would look for them both in their house and at Elsbeth’s school.

It also made her angry. “You _can’t_ do that to me!”

“I am sorry,” Elsbeth said quietly.

Astra balled her hands into fists. “Ideis is _a good woman_ ,” she said. “And it’s _my career_ on the line now. I believe in what I’m doing as much as you do in your job.”

“I know.” Elsbeth sat down, uncaring about getting dirt on her already ruined clothes. She set the book in her lap.

Astra sighed and sat down opposite her, putting her sword down in front of herself. “You lied to me,” she said very quietly.

“Not exactly.”

“A lie of omission is just that,” Astra snapped. She could see now why Elsbeth had lost control over her aura so briefly yesterday: because she’d _known_ what had laid in the old corridors.

“I wasn’t sure,” Elsbeth answered. “It could’ve been whatever. An old ghost in the building that had been drenched in blood.”

“So what was it?” Astra asked, looking at the book.

“It’s the Forbidden Grimoire,” Elsbeth said. “And every dark legend you might’ve heard about the old academy . . . It’s here.”

“All the more reason you should’ve let us handle it!” Astra couldn’t help but raise her voice. “You talk so much about friendship and trust, about how magic is safe, and then you—”

“What would you say if your sword was in a murderer’s hands?” Elsbeth asked.

“Can you even do good with that book?” Astra asked back.

“No.” Elsbeth sighed. “I didn’t even know it was real.” She put her hands on it on the both sides, as if she was holding it closed. “But when you said someone was there, so many years after it fell into ruin . . . And you left again . . . I had to check.”

“If I hadn’t seen you there,” Astra said, “were you going to tell me?”

Elsbeth shook her head mutely.

“At least you’re honest now,” Astra commented, feeling like she was about to cry. “And that person you were fighting?”

Elsbeth actually laughed at that. “Him. That was my ex.”

Astra gave her a look and Elsbeth shrugged. “He was what happens when power goes unchecked.” She sighed. “It’d been over between us before I even met you. If he ever cared about anything but _my_ power, I didn’t notice.”

Astra felt a surge of anger at that, because Elsbeth was a wonderful person who deserved better.

And who’d gone behind her back, and who’d used some terrifying spells tonight, and who might’ve ruined Astra’s professional life, and maybe her personal life, too.

“Hell of a coincidence,” she said.

Elsbeth shrugged. “There aren’t many artefacts left after the war. It’s not surprising some people look for what’s survived.”

“I don’t assume you’ll turn that in to us.”

Elsbeth looked grim. “Touching it would kill you, so no, no I won’t.”

Astra stared at where Elsbeth was holding it closed.

“I can’t contain it for long,” Elsbeth said. “I’ll have to destroy it. Later, and without you in the vicinity.” Steel sounded in her voice.

This was a side of Elsbeth Astra had never known. There was a difference between realising her girlfriend was a powerful warlock, but knowing her mostly as the calm teacher, and seeing her fight and—probably—kill. 

Had they really only shared the salmon a few hours ago?

“Astra,” Elsbeth said, sounding unsure for the first time that night. “Do you—do you want me to leave?”

It took Astra a moment to realise what Elsbeth was asking, and she wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Ideis won’t let you go free,” she said instead.

“Ideis won’t be the one deciding that,” Elsbeth said. “But I meant what I said. They can’t hold me. The question is how you would feel about having a girlfriend on the run.”

“You might’ve left me without a job,” Astra said.

“Ah.” Elsbeth looked away, her ball of light flickering suddenly. Astra knew a light spell was one of the easiest ones: seeing Elsbeth lose control over it was _wrong_. “Either way, the house is yours. I’ll—”

“ _Elsbeth_.” she said. “I’m—I’m not okay with what you did. A part of me _wants_ you to go, but . . . Not my heart, I don’t think so.”

The naked hope in Elsbeth’s face hurt, and Astra was annoyed, because it was Elsbeth’s actions leading to this. Was she even right about that book? Did she have to act like that?

_Why didn’t she trust Astra?_

Because she’d thought she knew best, Astra answered herself, angry. And yet, the thought of leaving Elsbeth was unbearable.

Ten years. This relationship was worth fighting for.

“Whatever Ideis—or whoever higher up you meant—will decide,” Astra said finally, “I think we should stay apart for a bit.”

Elsbeth nodded.

“But we should keep on meeting. And talking. And maybe it’ll all start making sense again. Because I don’t want it to end between us because of some magic book, but _you didn’t trust me_ and that’s hard to accept.”

“I wanted to protect you,” Elsbeth said. “I’m sorry.”

It would be easier if Astra could just _stop_ loving her.

She stood up. When Elsbeth followed suit, Astra reached to touch her where her gown was ripped. Elsbeth held the book in her other hand, extended away from her body, careful not to let Astra brush it, and didn’t move as Astra’s fingers touched her skin. She was speaking the truth: whatever wound had been there was gone.

But she wasn’t a healer. She wasn’t supposed to be able to do this. 

Astra looked at the book again, but didn’t ask.

“Don’t start a new war,” she said, only half-joking. “And be safe.”

“Always, darling,” Elsbeth said. She didn’t reach up to kiss Astra; instead she leant over her hand, brushing her lips over it. 

When Elsbeth let go, Astra found herself alone in front of their house.


End file.
